She smiles, and I smile back at her. Marina proved herself to be a strong ally with amazing Legacies on the battlefield yesterday. She can breathe underwater, see in the dark and heal the sick and wounded. Like all Garde, she also has telekinesis. And because we’re so close in order—I’m Number Six and she’s Number Seven—our bond is special. When the charm still held and we had to be killed in order, the Mogadorians would have had to get through me before they could get to her. And they never would have gotten through me.
Ella sits silently on the other side of Marina. As we continue to wait for Crayton, she opens the biology book on her lap and stares at the pages. Our charade does not demand this level of concentration and I’m about to lean over and tell her, but then I see she isn’t reading at all. She is trying to turn the page with her mind, trying to use telekinesis, but nothing’s happening.
Ella is what Crayton calls an Aeternus, someone born with the ability to move back and forth between ages. But she’s still young and her Legacies have not yet developed. They will come in their own time, no matter how impatiently she wills them to develop now.
Ella came to Earth on another ship, one I didn’t know existed until John Smith, Number Four, told me he saw it in his visions. She was just a baby, which means she’s almost twelve now. Crayton says he is her unofficial Cêpan, since there wasn’t time for him to be officially appointed to her. He, like all of our Cêpans, has a duty to help Ella develop her Legacies. He told us that there was also a small herd of Chim?ra on their ship, Loric animals capable of shifting forms and battling alongside us.
I’m happy she’s here. After Numbers One, Two, and Three died, only six of us remained. With Ella, we number seven. Lucky number seven, if you believe in luck. I don’t, though. I believe in strength.
Finally, Crayton squeezes down the aisle, carrying a black briefcase. He’s wearing eyeglasses and a brown suit that looks too big for him. Under his strong chin is a blue bow tie. He’s supposed to be our teacher.
“Hello, girls,” he says, stopping next to us.
“Hi, Mr. Collins,” Ella responds.
“It’s a full flight,” Marina says. That’s code for everyone on board looks okay. To tell him everything on the ground appears normal, I say, “I’m going to try to sleep.”
He nods and takes his seat directly behind Ella. Leaning forward between Marina and Ella, he says, “Use your time on the plane wisely, please. Study hard.”
That means, don’t let your guard down.
I didn’t know what to think of Crayton when we first met. He’s stern and quick tempered, but his heart seems to be in the right place and his knowledge of the world and current events is incredible. Official or not, he has taken his Cêpan role seriously. He says he would die for any one of us. He will do anything to defeat the Mogadorians; anything to exact our revenge. I believe him on all counts.
However, it’s with reluctance that I’m on this plane headed to India at all. I wanted to get back to the United States as soon as possible, to get back to John and Sam. But yesterday, standing on top of the dam overlooking the carnage at the lake, Crayton told us that Setrákus Ra, the powerful Mogadorian leader, would be on Earth soon, if he wasn’t here already. That Setrákus Ra’s arrival was a sign that the Mogadorians understood we were a threat, and we should expect them to step up their campaign to kill us. Setrákus Ra is more or less invincible. Only Pittacus Lore, the most powerful of all the Lorien Elders, would have been able to defeat him. We were horrified. What did that mean for the rest of us then, if he was invincible? When Marina asked this, asked how any of us could possibly stand a chance of defeating him, Crayton told us even more shocking news, knowledge that all the Cêpans had been entrusted with. One of the Garde—one of us—was supposed to hold the same powers as Pittacus. One of us was supposed to grow as strong as he had been, and would be able to beat Setrákus Ra. We just had to hope that that Garde wasn’t One, Two, or Three, that it was one of the ones still alive. If so, we had a chance. We just had to wait and see who it was, and hope that these powers showed themselves soon.
Crayton thinks he’s found him—the Garde who holds Pittacus’ powers.
“I’ve read about a boy who seems to have extraordinary powers in India,” he told us then. “He lives high up in the Himalayas. Some believe him to be the Hindu god Vishnu reincarnated; others believe the boy is an alien imposter with the power to physically alter his form.”
“Like me, Papa?” Ella had asked. Their father-daughter relationship took me by surprise. I couldn’t help but feel a touch of jealousy—jealousy that she still had her Cêpan, someone to turn to for guidance.
“He’s not changing ages, Ella. He’s changing into beasts and other beings. The more I read about him, the more I believe he is a member of the Garde, and the more I believe he may be the one to possess all of the Legacies, the one who can fight and kill Setrákus Ra. We need to find him as soon as possible.”
I don’t want to be on a wild goose chase for another member of the Garde right now. I know where John is, or where he is supposed to be. I can hear Katarina’s voice, urging me to follow my instincts, which are telling me we should connect with John first before anything else. It’s the least risky move. Certainly less risky than flying around the world based on Crayton’s hunch and rumors on the internet.
“It could be a trap,” I said. “What if those stories were planted for us to find so we would do exactly this?”
“I understand your concern, Six, but, trust me, I’m the master of planting stories on the internet. This is no plant. There are far too many sources pointing to this boy in India. He hasn’t been running. He hasn’t been hiding. He’s just being, and he appears to be very powerful. If he is one of you, then we must get to him before the Mogadorians do. We’ll go to America to meet up with Number Four as soon as this trip is over,” Crayton said.
Marina looked at me. She wanted to find John almost as much as I did—she’d been following the news of his exploits online and she’d had a similar feeling in her gut that he was one of us, a feeling I had confirmed for her. “Promise?” she asked Crayton. He nodded.
The captain’s voice breaks through my reverie. We’re about to take off. I want so badly to redirect the plane to point it towards West Virginia. Towards John and Sam. I hope they’re okay. Images of John being held in a prison cell keep entering my mind. I never should have told him about the Mog base in the mountain, but John wanted to get his Chest back and there was no way I could convince him to leave it behind.
The plane taxis down the runway and Marina grabs my wrist. “I really wish Héctor was here. He’d have something smart to say right now to make me feel better.”
“It’s okay,” Ella says, holding Marina’s other hand. “You have us.”
“And I’ll work on something smart to say,” I offer.
“Thanks,” Marina says, though it sounds like something between a hiccup and a gulp. I let her nails dig into my wrist. I give her a supportive smile, and a minute later we’re airborne.
CHAPTER TWO
I’ve been in and out of consciousness for the past two days, rolling back and forth in a hallucinating sickness. The effects from the blue force field outside the Mogadorians’ mountain have lingered far longer than Nine told me they would, both mentally and physically. Every few minutes, my muscles seize and sear with pain.
I try to distract myself from the agony by looking around the tiny bedroom of this decaying, abandoned house. Nine couldn’t have picked a more disgusting place for us to hide. I can’t trust my eyes. I watch the pattern on the yellow wallpaper come to life, the design marching like ants over patches of mold. The cracked ceiling appears to breathe, rising and falling at frightening speeds. There’s a large jagged hole in the wall that separates the bedroom and living room, as if someone tossed a sledgehammer through it. Smashed beer cans are strewn around the room, and the baseboards have been torn to shreds by animals. I’ve been hearing things rustling in the trees outside the house, but I’m too weak to be alarmed. Last night I woke to find a cockroach on my cheek. I barely had the energy to swat it off.